


nothing else matters

by xylodemon



Series: deancas codas: season thirteen [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 15:07:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12368349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: "You say goodbye."





	nothing else matters

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 13x01.
> 
> Also available on [tumblr](http://xylodemon.tumblr.com/post/166417239194/deancas-fic-nothing-else-matters-12k).

"We lost everything," Dean snarls. His pulse is thundering underneath his jaw. "And now you're gonna bring him back. You're gonna bring back Cas, you're gonna bring back Mom, you're gonna bring 'em all back — all of 'em. Even Crowley.

"'Cause after everything you've done... you owe us, you sonofabitch. So you get your ass down here, and you make this right. Right here. Right now."

Dean sucks in a breath. He pauses for a second, but nothing happens — no thunderbolt, no flash of light, no voice in the distance. Swallowing hard, he glances at the sky, then turns and looks out across the lake. The water is pale blue and rippling softly. Dean sucks in another breath, and another. The stench from the restaurant's dumpster crowds into his nose — rotting food and grease.

He slams his fist into the smiling pirate cut-out on the wall, again and again and again — until his knuckles split open and the wood splinters and snaps in half. He hurls the pieces over his shoulder and chokes down a thick, desperate noise. He wants — fuck. _Fuck_.

"Please."

 

+

 

"God's not listening," Dean says. "He doesn't give a damn."

Before Sam can say anything, Dean slams the trunk closed and turns away.

 

+

 

The porch steps creak under Sam's feet. He asks, "You want me to do it?" in a quiet, careful voice.

"No," Dean says, shaking his head. A shot of Jim Beam is burning the back of his throat. "I, uh. I gotta — I gotta do this myself."

Sam just looks at him for a second. Then he nods and touches Jack's arm. "Come on. Lets go take care of your mom."

The porch creaks again as they file inside. The front door sticks, and Dean yanks on it to get it closed. He watches Sam lead Jack up the stairs, then turns and heads into what passes for the dump's dining room. It smells musty, and a heavy layer of dust is covering the floor. Jack's nursery is the only room Cas and Kelly really bothered with.

Cas is laid out on a table cut from the same pines growing up in gnarled clumps around the lake. Dean pauses beside it, grabbing the back of a chair as the bourbon lurches in his gut. His throat feels like its closing up. He flexes his hand a few times before pulling back the sheet.

Dean's never thought the dead look peaceful. Maybe because of the job — he's seen too many vampires with blood pumping from their severed necks, too many shapeshifters with a silver knife planted in their chests. He's seen too many victims — people torn open by werewolves or drained dry by vetalas or chewed up by ghouls. He's seen enough ghosts to know dying doesn't always mean getting to rest.

Cas is all deep shadows and sharp angles. His skin is graying. His eyes are closed. There's a bluish hint to the mouth Dean was too much of a coward to kiss.

Dean pulls the sheet back over Cas' face and paces the length of the table. Outside, the afternoon sun is inching toward the horizon; dust motes are twisting in the light streaming in through the dirty windows. There's another sheet in the Impala's trunk, but Dean knows if he goes back out there he'll crawl inside his flask and stay there. He grabs the curtain rod off the wall and tugs one of the flimsy panels free. It's gritty and stiff with sun-rot and age, but it tears easily enough.

Dean's hands are shaking. He closes his eyes for a moment, then grits his teeth and fumbles the cloth around Cas' feet.

 

+

 

"You say thank you."

Dean tried to thank Cas once — back in the early days, back when Cas was still just another feathered dick punching Heaven's clock full-time. They had been arguing about something — about Sam or Lilith or the Seals, about the Apocalypse — it's been so long now that Dean doesn't really remember. Cas had been different then, windswept and impatient, crackling with purpose and raw power and righteous wrath. Dean had tossed it out there to douse the flames a little, but Cas had dismissed it with half a shrug and one of his usual party lines about God's will.

Dean never tried again, but he — fuck. He should've. Not just for yanking him out of the Pit, but for everything else that came after. Cas stuck by them, even with Heaven breathing down his neck. He helped them, and he fought with them. He saved their asses more times than Dean can count. He was a friend — Dean's best friend. And he — he — fuck.

He could've been something else. Dean spent so long living for his dad and for Sam and for the fucking job that he never really learned how to live for himself. Instead, he learned how to settle, filling the gaps with whatever could make him happy for a couple hours at a time — a greasy cheeseburger, a good bottle of scotch, the women he met in dark, smoky bars. A few guys who had rough laughs and slow, dark smiles. But Cas had changed that. Knowing Cas — _loving_ him — had made Dean want something for himself for the first time since his dad put a gun into his hand.

He knew what Cas was really saying at Ishim's place. Making that Zepp tape had been his way of telling Cas he felt the same way, but he — Christ. He should've been braver. He should've opened his mouth. 

_Castiel? He's dead. All the way dead. Because of you._

He should've pulled Cas away from that portal. He should've — he should've — he —

"You say goodbye."

 

+

 

They leave North Cove just before sunrise. Sheriff Barker promised to keep the fuzz out of their hair as long as they needed, but Dean isn't interested in sticking around. He wants to put the lake house in his rearview mirror. He wants to get Satan's kid back to the bunker before anything else goes to shit.

They grab breakfast at a Fuel & Go on the edge of town, then head east on Highway 105 as it hugs the rocky, Washington coast through the Shoal Water Reservation and past a flyspeck called Dexter-by-the-Sea. Sam sips his coffee; Jack licks donut sugar off his fingers and watches the Pacific Ocean churn against the shore. The sun is a fiery smear along the horizon, and it glares at Dean through the Impala's windshield until they hit Highway 6 and hook southeast toward I-5.

Dean flips the radio on. The first station he finds is boring stock market talk; the second is one of those morning zoo deals. About two minutes in, the shouting and sound effects have him grinding his teeth. He snatches a tape out of the glove compartment — Metallica — and feeds it into the Impala's cassette player.

_Never opened myself this way. Life is ours, we live it our way. All these words I don't just say. And nothing else matters._

Just over the Oregon line, Sam clears his throat and asks, "You, uh — are you going to be okay?"

"No," Dean admits. Whatever bluster he had left went up in smoke on Cas' pyre. "No, Sammy. I'm not."


End file.
